


I'll See You in Another Life

by crazykookie



Category: Captain America (Movies), Torchwood
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, M/M, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 22:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5761834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazykookie/pseuds/crazykookie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack Harkness meets Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes during WWII.<br/>Then, 80 years later, he meets them again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll See You in Another Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whatthehale](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatthehale/gifts).



> warning: Mentions of violence, but nothing remotely graphic.

_"There's not gonna be a safe landing, but I can try and force it down."_

-Steve Rogers, _Captain America_

 

Harkness stepped over the rubble of the leveled city building, and scanned the abandoned battlefield for anyone who had stayed around. Harkness didn't think the word survivors, because, blessedly, he hadn't seen anyone. It seemed the small town had succeeded in evacuating, before the bombs were dropped.

His heart indescribably lightened by the lack of loss here, his mind turned, inevitably, to pastries. What was the likelihood there were some croissants stashed away somewhere? Aged cheese? Brie was always his favorite. Even more, aged wine? That combination brought to mind the image of the evening he had spent last week in the countryside with that beautiful farmer-- what was his name? Oh yes, Arnol. Maybe. He had had amber eyes with long lashes, and biceps to cry for. He had liked fishing, and he had also like bottomi--

The reverie was broken by something not often heard in felled cities-- a laugh. He heard it followed by a burst of joyous chuckles. It was emanating from around the corner, which he turned to see two men, clearly American from their uniforms, sitting on a bench side by side, something between them.

"Howdy, boys!" Harkness hollered, intentionally heavy on the American accent and slang, so they knew he was a friendly.

Still, they both shot to their feet with the alacrity of finely-trained soldiers.

He raised his hands in submission, and the blonde one loosened his grip on his shield. The shield would have seemed weird if he wasn't also dressed in a red, white, and blue latex bodysuit.

The other one, brunette and with more of a rough around the edges look, moved almost imperceptibly in front of the star-spangled gymnast, protective. Harkness wondered if the gymnast knew. Probably not; they rarely did.

"I'm on your side, fellas," he tried, and pointed at the flag embroidered on his regulation shirt. "And there's no question whose side you're on, with your fashion choices," he said, with a smile at his own joke, meeting the gymnast's eyes, and taking a step towards him.

"Woah," the lovestruck brunette threatened, moving bodily in front of the other man now. His calloused fingers tightened around the handle of his gun, pointed at Harkness's face.

"Woah, yourself, kid," Harkness said, stepping back. "I'm just exchanging greetings." He couldn't help himself, "Where'd you grow up, a barn?"

"Brooklyn, actually," Harkness was pleasantly surprised to hear the gymnast say. He was given a beaming smile of fully intact pearly white teeth.

"Bucky, relax," the gymnast said, and placed his fingers lightly on the man's hand. "He's clearly American." Bucky, as he was apparently called (stupid name in Harkness's opinion,) reluctantly turned his eyes to the gymnast. The effect was immediate and unquestionable; a sweet smile replaced the death glare, and his arm became malleable under the gymnast's hand. Bucky would do whatever the gymnast wanted-- whatever he wanted. It was highly entertaining to Harkness, if tinged with sadness-- he had already experienced the crushing grief of first love. He tried to smother the conviction that one of both of them would end up broken by this eventually. He was a nihilist, but hey, maybe they'd make it. It must be possible for some couples to.

Love in the middle of a war didn't give them the best odds, his relentless mind whispered.

"The name is Captain Jack Harkness of the USM," he said, sticking his hand out to the blonde.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Captain Harkness" was the response, "My name is Steve Rogers." He shook it warmly and re-delivered the blinding smile.

Harkness looked at Bucky in time to see the narrowed eyes, and jealous flush on his cheeks. This wasn't suspicion, obviously. It was protectiveness.

Harkness laughed, unable to control himself, and offered his hand to the brunette. "It's a pleasure to meet you as well, Soldier."

The man's eyebrows raised at the laughter, but he met his hand, and clenched his fingers around it. "My name's James Buchannan Barnes, Captain." His voice was warm, and for the first time he gave him a friendly smile. If Harkness had been 15 years younger, that smile would have swept him off his feet. He continued, "We're happy to see you, Sir, we seem to have lost track of our troop. Late to the resendez vous, I think."

"My fault, completely," Rogers quickly clarified.

Barnes-- a much better name, Harkness thought-- gave Rogers a sarcastic look. "Yeah, you reuniting a schoolbus full of marooned children with their parents was absolutely an irresponsible waste of time."

The look he received in return was a mixture between earnest and apoplectic.

"Well, Soldiers, that's all well and good," Harkness broke into their moot argument. "But regardless of how it came about, now we have the problem, so we're going to have to solve it."

The two men jumped to attention, clearly still uncertain about his command style. They seemed to be the kind of men who knew how to relax and have a good time, but like all well-trained soldiers, they were erring on the side of safety.

"I suggest the first line of action we commit is camping out for the night. Barnes, find us some shelter, a few streets back so we're out of sight. With beds, preferably."  


"Yes, Sir."  


"Don't look too long," he gestured to the Western sky that was threatening to enter sunset. "No need to get fancy. Two beds will do just as well. I'm sure you boys are fine with sharing."  


Barnes spasmed into a stilted laugh. Harkness gave him a wink. Rogers beamed and said, "It looks like we'll get along darn well."  


"That we will, Rogers." Harkness validated. "Find us some grub. Wine. A red. A pink will do, but please no white. Hard on the old stomach," he elaborated, and Bucky gave him a look that communicated that he, like all Earthlings, foolishly assumed Harkness was no older than 40.  


"I'll try to find us all of the food groups, Sir," was Rogers's dutiful response.  


"Whatever floats your boat. I'll find a radio to try and make contact with my people. Meet back here in half an hour. Then we'll play some poker." He picked the cards up from the bench they'd be sitting on.  


"Two beds, no white," Steve repeated.  


Barnes scrambled away.

***  


Rogers, predictably, did find enough food to fulfill all five food groups.  


When they reconvened at the beginning of the summer sunset, he was holding two heaping potato sacks in each hand.  


"Should I even ask how your boy can do that?" Harkness mumbled to Barnes.  


Barnes let out a sigh (at what was obvious,) and told him that no, Sir, the answer would just confuse him.  


"First house I found with intact rooms had three beds in it, Sir," he said next. "If that's alright with you," he added.

"Whatever floats your boat," Harkness reassured him. "I've figured out a plan." he said, louder now. "Which way to the house?"

***

It ended up Rogers could haul four potato sacks of food over rubble and also keep up an indefatigable string of child-appropriate jokes, for half an hour's walk, in the midsummer night's heat of inland Western Europe.

Barnes rolled his eyes at every one, but the expression on his face just perceptible in the twilight light communicated that he would be happy to listen to Rogers tell them every day, for the rest of his life.

***

A red wine, a canberra wheel, and a mound of carrots and potatoes later, Barnes lay on his back with his head on a dictionary; Rogers sat on the area rug; Harkenss himself on his army issue jacket, comfortably in the summer heat.  


"Brooklyn, 1935. It was a summer night like this, but in Brooklyn, the air is--"  


"More dirty, you're right about that. But Bucky, you also know that it's beautiful, too."  


The men were lost in the world of reminiscence. 

"I know, Steve. The sounds of the cars all through the night. The lights of the buildings, still lit up. Not too many, just enough to look like stars. Those nights when we stayed up, sitting on the porch, looking out at it all." 

"When we go back, Bucky, we can do it again. But we're not done here, yet." 

"We were so eager to leave to fight. Now I've been away long enough that I miss it." 

"That's what we're protecting, that's why we're here." 

"I wouldn't go back and change it if I could." 

"Me neither." 

At the silence, Jack and Steve looked over to see a sleeping Barnes, who had fallen asleep with an arm across his face. 

"Head to sleep yourself, Rogers," Harkness advised. "Tomorrow, you're back to work." 

"And what about you?" Rogers asked with genuine curiosity. 

"I'll be here and there, doing what I can." 

Rogers nodded, then said, "It was great meeting you, Sir." 

"You stick with him, Soldier. It may seem like who you're with during a war doesn't matter, but sometimes the face of someone you love is what makes you pull yourself up from the ground and keep running." Harkness felt the obligation to advise what would have helped him when he was young. 

"He really is someone I love, Sir," Roger's honest face stared at his in the firelight.

Harkness responded with an understanding look, and said, "All the more reason." 

"Thank you, Sir. I'll try."

***

The men parted at 10-hundred hours the following day-- Harkness wasn't a sadist, he wasn't going to make them rush through breakfast, a tasty one at that, based on some non-subjective military protocol of a country he wasn't technically a citizen of-- at the fountain in the center of the town he had set up a meeting at two weeks before

His battalion was ready for him to re-join, and Rogers and Barnes would be taken by two of his men to their battalion's newly established camp.

"Captain," Rogers said warmly, and offered his hand for a shake goodbye.  


"Rogers, it's been a pleasure," he told him. "You too, Barnes," as he shook Barnes's hand.  


"Your Colonel O'Neil filled us in on the mission we've been assigned," Rogers's good natured-voice considerately told him. "We've got intel on a base in the mountains. Next week, we're heading to Switzerland."

"I heard it's nice this time of year."

"We'll do some skiing for you, Sir," Barnes said.

"Have one of those fondue pot things."

"Whatever you want, Sir."

Harkness was overcome with a swell of feelings-- sentimentality, pride, affection. He understood the men in the dedication and determination with which they spoke about battle. He had been this way when he was young as well. There was a unique disregard for personal sacrifice they carried. They felt fear, of course; doubt, yes; but they had the irrational passion tragically young soldiers were driven by to do what they felt was Right.

"I'll miss you boys," he told them, surprised to find himself placing a protective hand on each of their shoulders. "Take care of each other. And have some fun. Eat some fondue for me. That's an order."

"Yes, Sir," Rogers said.

"We'll see you again, Sir," Barnes told him with a nod.

"You bet your Yankee butts you will," Harkness said, and let them walk away.

**Author's Note:**

> This was in response to a tumblr hypothetical about Jack Harkness meeting Steve and Bucky shown to me by my friend, so I wrote it. It did not come out the way specified, but it came out as something!  
> chapter 2 will happen.  
> Comments are appreciated :).


End file.
